The Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic has said that the fractious relationship between certain players and manager Andre Villas-Boas must be put aside for the good of the club if they are to rescue their season.

Jacques Brunel has reached a stage in his job as Italy coach that all who have gone before him reached at around the same time. Two matches in, the Frenchman has changed his starting fly-half.

Neil Lennon told his Celtic players not to "spoil" their tremendous winning run after their 2-0 home victory over Dunfermline last night took them 20 points clear of Rangers at the top of the Scottish Premier League.

From Crawley to Valencia, Stoke City's campaign of contrasts will extend beyond tonight on its European front only if the Premier League's 13th-placed team achieve what only three English clubs have managed in Valencia's half-century among the continental elite ? a victory in the Mestalla stadium.

CSKA Moscow's Pontus Wernbloom made a quick return on the club's recent investment and was labelled a hero by their usually quiet coach after scoring a last-gasp equaliser against Real Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday night.

Chris Flannery, the St Helens forward, plans to retire at the end of this season. Flannery, 31, arrived from the Sydney Roosters in 2007 and has played in four losing Grand Finals for Saints ? which has left him with an ambition to go one better this time.

Having knocked out Manchester United before Christmas, Basle claimed another famous Champions League scalp when they beat Bayern Munich 1-0 in the first leg of their round of 16 tie at St Jakob-Park last night, substitute Valentin Stocker hitting the winner with four minutes to go.

In many eyes, the real business of England's tour of the UAE starts tonight. With the irritating diversions of the Test and one-day series finally over it is at last time for the Twenty20 matches.

Liverpool's Stewart Downing has admitted that moving to the club has given him "a culture shock" and subjected him to levels of pressure greater than anything he had expected.

Wolverhampton Wanderers continue to be frustrated in their efforts to replace their sacked manager Mick McCarthy, with hopes of securing the services of Alan Curbishley and Brian McDermott having faded. The Midlands club made a second attempt yesterday to lure the initial favourite Curbishley to Molineux and it led to bookmakers reinstating him as a leading candidate.

Holly Bleasdale has another crack at the queen of the pole vault in Stockholm tonight. Two weeks ago in Bydgoszcz, Poland, the 20-year-old Briton cleared the same height as Yelena Isinbayeva, 4.68m, but was beaten by the Russian Olympic champion on countback.

Spurs and Arsenal will issue a joint statement to fans ahead of Emmanuel Adebayor's first match at the Emirates Stadium since returning to north London.

The caretaker England manager, Stuart Pearce, is expected to give a group of young players an opportunity to impress for the senior team when he names his squad this morning for the friendly against the Netherlands next Wednesday.

Playing football in the late-afternoon drizzle, not to mention on Thursdays, is beginning to feel a little less comical than it seemed. Andre Villas-Boas, who was here to watch the side he made into reigning Europa League champions, could have been forgiven a twinge of envy for Roberto Mancini and for the spirit of European adventure which is beginning to take hold in the re-established capital of British football.

As he left the San Paolo Stadium on Tuesday, walking out alone to the team bus, Villas-Boas could be forgiven for reflecting that the faith he had expressed in the Chelsea squad he inherited last summer had been more than a little overstated.

Shelley Rudman today begins her attempt to add a skeleton world championship medal to her World Cup crown.

The talk behind the scenes at Old Trafford yesterday was of sustainability. The stadium is the first of its size in Britain to be awarded a prestigious environmental quality mark, though "ISO 14001" ? to give it its full title ? understandably did not feature in Sir Alex Ferguson's discussion of where his and other English sides now feature in the continental pecking order.

As Wolverhampton Wanderers widened their search for a successor to Mick McCarthy by talking to Walter Smith, the former Rangers and Everton manager, Gus Poyet, another candidate on their radar, ruled himself out of a potential move to Molineux.

Realism has been the order of the day for England's Six Nations campaign so far and so it must continue on Saturday, regardless of this being the first game at Twickenham, or the fact that the visitors are Wales. In all the emotion, we must keep in mind where this England side are and where we hope they are going.

Welcome (back) to Manchester, Carlos; the Etihad Stadium on its feet, singing the name of an Argentine who had propelled their football club into the last 16 of the Europa League.

The Football Association has been asked by the Government to come up with an action plan to tackle a variety of race and homophobia-related issues within two months after yesterday's summit on the issue at Downing Street.

Luke Donald's nine-month reign as world No 1 is under threat. By losing to Ernie Els in the first round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, a title he won last year, Donald has given Lee Westwood or Rory McIlroy a chance to claim golf's top spot. But victory on Sunday is required for all the numbers to add up. Westwood has cleared the first hurdle beating Nicolas Colsaerts 3&1. Meanwhile, McIlroy was doing his best to overtake South African George Coetze last night.

A hard-hearted sort would bracket the full-back Ben Foden with the outside-half Charlie Hodgson as England's leading scorer of the Six Nations to date, on account of the two "own tries" he donated to the Italians in Rome a dozen days ago. If the first, a chaotic pinball job in which the ball ricocheted off both Foden and Ben Youngs before finding its way to a grateful Giovanbattista Venditti, was merely annoying, the second ? a classic interception pass to Tommaso Benvenuti ? bordered on the criminal. By his own admission, Foden has ground to make up against Wales this weekend.

Joe Hart

West Ham's Ravel Morrison has been fined £7,000 by the Football Association in response to a homophobic remark made on Twitter.